


A Court of Blood and Ash

by starrbirrd



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACOSF divergence, F/F, F/M, It isn't too big of a part in this but Nesta gets better treatment than she was given lmao, M/M, but more of a family thing, does found family count if theyre already family, i'll add tags as i go, so a lot of the other big name characters wont come in until later, that being said ACOSF spoilers regardless, this is gonna be eris and OC centric, this isn't meant to be a romance, this isnt related to whatever that other book series is with ash and blood in the title, though they will be mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29934006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrbirrd/pseuds/starrbirrd
Summary: Anjali is a demi-fae.Bastard born, hated by both sides, it's safe to say she's never had it easy in life. She's spent a good chunk of it hidden, and a majority keeping to herself. She looks after the humans if they need it, but she never gets attached, and she never interacts with the fae.Unfortunately for her, the same can't be said in reverse.After an incident where she uses a burst of the power she's been trying to ignore since it developed, a fae male inserts himself into her business whether she wants him there or not. He's got a deal for her, and if she helps him succeed in his nefarious plans, she'll get answers to questions she's had for years, and training to control the force inside of her. If they fail, it's possible both the foreign fae lands and the human villages she's been protecting will fall victim to a ruler worse than the one they'd barely escaped years before.The plan, thankfully, isn't difficult.She just needs to take out several highly powerful faeries.And a High Lord.But Anjali has never had it easy in life, and it hasn't stopped her before. She'll help the stranger, begrudgingly, even though she knows it could cost her everything.
Relationships: Elain Archeron & Lucien Vanserra, Eris Vanserra/Original Female Character(s), Feyre Archeron/Rhysand, Nesta Archeron & Cassian, Nesta Archeron & Lucien Vanserra
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello guys! This is my first time writing for the ACOTAR series, as well as the first time writing a chaptered fic! I actually have this entire thing plotted out already, so I'm hoping to be able to post a chapter at least once a week, so long as the muse doesn't leave me. Please take a look at the tags if you haven't, and happy reading!

Anjali never thought much about how she would die.  
  
Death was a fear most people had, and rightfully so. It came for everyone when their time was up, whether they were old or young, healthy or sickly, rich or poor. Death was an inevitable fate, something you prayed to avoid, and something the superstitious refused to speak about out loud. Regardless of faith or fear, though, all humans died.  
  
It just so happened that Anjali wasn’t one.  
  
Conceived by a mortal woman and some bastard of a fae male that had left before her birth, Anjali was a _demi-fae_. A creature damned by humans and full-blooded faeries alike, looked down upon and hunted if they were discovered. They tended to be hated by either side nearly as much as both sides hated one another, enough so that they usually spent the majority of their lives on the run, keeping hidden from the outside world for their own good.  
  
A fierce but kind-hearted person, Anjali’s mother had kept her safe for thirty-one years as she slowly aged, hiding her in a tiny shack on the outskirts of their village as opposed to throwing her in the nearest river and carrying on with life. Ishanvi was smart, and she was careful. She hadn’t allowed her daughter to even peek through the curtains, much less wander around outdoors, and only broke those strict rules on the darkest of nights when there was no moon. On those rare occasions, Anjali would be brought into the forest to run around and play, but only for a few hours.  
  
Her confinement was a source of many fights between the two once she’d grown old enough to get tired of it, until finally Ishanvi had sat her down and explained the harsh truth of the world she’d been born into.  
  
_"They will kill you, daughter. They will take one look at the shape of your ears, at the brightness of your eyes, and they will realize you aren’t like them. It would only take twenty minutes for them to construct a pyre, and even less time to bind you and throw you into the sea.”  
  
_Thoroughly spooked, all Anjali could think to ask at the time was _Why?_ Why would they do something so awful to her when she’d never even met them before? She wouldn’t bite them, if that’s what they were scared of, even if her teeth were sharper than theirs.  
  
Ishanvi, with a sad smile Anjali saw more often as she aged, had only told her that humans were cruel, skittish creatures when it came to the things they didn’t understand. It was easier to kill something that could harm them before it did than it was to find out the hard way exactly how much stronger it was than they were. It wasn’t right, but it was the way of things, and it had been since long before even she had been born. Since her parents and theirs and so on, spanning back hundreds of years.  
  
Naive as she was, Anjali hadn’t truly accepted the explanation, but the fights to go outside stopped. Or at least she stopped asking about it so often, and quietly came to recognize the lengths her mother went through to let her leave the house at all.  
  
Still, privately, she’d mused to herself, _‘Humans can’t be that bad.’_ She was sure. _‘If I met them, I could make them like me.’  
  
  
  
  
_That had been several decades ago, and considering her current position, the cynical woman she’d developed into was less inclined to believe she could make the humans like her and leaned more towards believing that they’d cut her up and sell her body without hesitation if it meant they might earn a bit of silver.  
  
It was hard not to, considering the group of men standing around her were currently debating on that exact subject.  
  
“If we sell her here, we won’t earn even half as much as we would in Bellmare,” that was the shortest of the bunch speaking, glaring at a blonde as he did. He was the greediest, or at least it was what she assumed given that he was the only one out of the five who had kept this argument going for the past twenty minutes, “Everyone knows Seahaven has shit prices for something like this. They’re a fishing port, not a trafficking one.”  
  
Anjali was fairly positive he was wrong, considering all the things her eyes had seen in the dead of night when everyone was meant to be asleep, but she didn’t bother correcting him. It was more amusing to watch them argue among themselves, especially since she’d snapped through the ropes binding her hands together not long after they’d dropped her into the near-black dirt floor of the forest.  
  
“We can’t risk carrying her that far alive, Huon. She might only be a half-breed, but she’s still as dangerous to us as any true fae. And who knows if she’s here with some…pack of them. We’ve spent enough time going over this as it is- they could be hunting us right now.”  
  
The other men began shifting nervously as the idea took root in their brains, though this one was wrong as well. Anjali traveled alone and always had. Always would. It was likely what made her an easy mark for the bandits she was stuck with now. There was no way they’d discovered she was a demi-fae until after she’d been knocked unconscious. She was too cautious for that, stuck to the shadows too closely for anyone to ever notice, so chances were they’d noticed a young woman on her own, after dark, and saw an opportunity. If she’d been awake when they realized just what creature she really was, she imagined their eyes had lit up like they’d struck gold. A pretty human girl could get you a decent amount if you found the right buyer.  
  
A live, captured demi-fae? It could get enough gold to buy a house and the land surrounding it.  
  
As hated as her kind was, they sold very well to certain collectors.  
  
“Charls is right, Huon,” One of the calmer ones interrupted, giving a wary glance towards Anjali, “We sell her live here, or we kill her and sell the pieces in Bellmare. It’s one or the other, and we’re running out of time.”  
  
“I prefer the first option, if you ask me,” Anjali sighed, the original amusement she’d felt fading and being replaced with mild annoyance. It was funny for twenty minutes, but not for too much longer, and there were ants trying to get into her clothes.  
  
“Shut up, or I’ll put a gag on you myself,” Huon threatened, his face red with anger at having the group gang up against him.  
  
She flashed her teeth at him in response.  
  
“I’d like to see you try, _pig_.”  
  
  
That was the last straw for the man, and all it took for him to stalk over, fists clenched. He was going to make good on his promise to gag her, just not before he used her as a release for his own frustration. Human men were incredibly easy to read, and she knew that he believed she’d be simple enough to deal with given how smoothly her kidnapping had gone.  
  
For the umpteenth time that evening, Huon was very, very wrong.  
  
The second he was in her range, Anjali rolled onto her back and kicked as hard as she could with her feet. It not only broke the rope from around her ankles, but threw the bandit back a few yards, ribs crunching audibly from the impact. Huon wouldn’t be a problem any longer with an injury like that, but she still jumped up regardless to face the four remainders.  
  
“Huon!” A stocky man who had been completely silent throughout the arguing appeared pained as he stared at the unmoving body of his companion, as though he’d taken the blow himself. Going by the similarities between the two, Anjali suspected they were related somehow, but felt no pity in her heart. Men like this didn’t deserve pity, and they certainly didn’t deserve any type of mercy, either.  
  
With how they turned to look at her once their initial shock wore off, it was clear the feeling was mutual.  
  
Despite being a demi-fae, Anjali was not a warrior. She could fight, could _kill_ , and she had many times before. But she had never been too good at it, had never received any type of training other than hands on experience. She knew she was stronger than they were because of her blood, and knew this was a battle she would win in the end, even if they didn’t think so. It was just that if she chose to take them down one by one, it would be a messy, chaotic brawl, and she wouldn’t be leaving without her own fair share of injuries.  
  
Meaning if she wanted to escape unscathed and keep on her usual schedule, she’d have no choice but to use the power that currently lied dormant somewhere deep in her chest.  
  
  
Charls raised a crossbow she hadn’t even been aware of and ultimately made the choice for her.  
  
  
Easier than it should have been, flames erupted from her body, sending out a horrible burst of rippling heat that had the two closest to her shielding their eyes and taking a step back rather than forward. For a split second, she allowed herself to drink in the terror in Charls and the last man’s eyes, feeling something similar to satisfaction at their sudden comprehension of who they were _truly_ dealing with. Of what she was.  
  
  
And then Anjali exploded.  
  
  
Or that was the closest she could ever get to explaining how it felt to send out impossibly large waves of fire, force so great and savage that it turned anything it touched to ashes within moments. There was no control to it, no exceptions or careful patterns. Only destruction and, ultimately, the eradication of anything in it’s path.  
  
  
  
Anjali had never thought much about how she would die because half the time, she suspected she was Death itself.  
  
  
  
Those men never stood a chance.  
  
  
All too soon, she recalled the flames back, hissing as they disappeared. Where, she wasn’t quite sure, but that was a running theme when it came to the fire living under her skin. Anjali didn’t know if it was a common power of the fae or not. She didn’t know how to properly wield it half the time, and she certainly didn’t know the limitations- that wasn’t something she wanted to test, ever.  
  
What she did know was that it had come to life when she was seventeen, that it was more deadly than she’d ever thought something could be, and that no amount of using it ever felt like enough. Yet it still began to burn her in return if she went on for too long or pushed herself too hard. An inconvenient contradiction if she’d ever seen one.  
  
  
“Idiot,” Anjali muttered towards the scorch marks where Charls had been standing once everything had calmed, taking in a deep breath of smoky air.  
  
After a quick look around, it became evident that aside from the five kidnappers, the casualty list wasn’t too high. At least not as high as it could have been, with only seven trees having been caught in the crossfire, along with the jagged searing on the ground. The only good thing about her ability was that when she called for it to return, all of it did, keeping any accidental forest fires from happening. How long it could last if left alone was another thing she was unaware of and unwilling to experiment with.  
  
Hoping they were far enough from the village that no one would have seen any brief but unnatural brightness shining through the leaves, Anjali roughly shoved her dark hair into a ponytail before walking forward, kicking ash and debris around as she did. It served two purposes, one being to see if anything of value had survived, and the second being to make a confusing mess of things for anyone who might come looking later on. There would be no hiding that this was the work of magic, but she could cover up the fact that there were obvious deaths here, if only to keep anyone from panicking. Traveling was hard enough without the villages thinking a rogue fae had crossed over into their territory and was attacking them ‘unprovoked’.  
  
Because it was always unprovoked as far as they were concerned. Self defense didn’t count if you were a demi-fae, and even less if you were female.  
  
  
It took three minutes of grumbling and being lost in her acerbic thoughts before Anjali realized she was being watched.  
  


Awareness crept up her spine slowly, but with an iciness that made her head snap up and scan the area around her. Being mixed with something inhuman gave advantages like superior strength and vision, even while encompassed in the inky darkness, but she wouldn’t have needed it to spot _him_.  
  
He wasn’t even trying to hide, casually leaned against a tree and staring at her with an expression she couldn’t quite make out. It was too dark to tell much of anything about him, enhanced sight or otherwise, but she could tell he was pale and had light colored hair. Too light to be brown but too dark to be blonde. Tall, though, and fit. A threat, much more than the men before him-  
  
And undeniably fae.  
  
The distance between them was too great for her to see his pointed ears and the wind wasn’t blowing enough that she could scent him, but Anjali knew from the moment she laid eyes on the stranger that he wasn’t a human. She didn’t know _how_ she knew, only that she did.  
  
Internally, she couldn’t help but berate herself as she shifted into a fighting stance. She shouldn’t have used so much of her powers, and she should have been paying better attention to her surroundings. Nearly thirty years of surviving alone meant she was supposed to be a step ahead of everyone, but she’d gotten caught up in her thoughts like she was a child again, and it had brought trouble in the form of an opponent she presumably couldn’t beat.  
  
As ridiculous as the notion was, was it possible that the bandits she’d murdered just so happened to have a faery man for a bodyguard who’d came looking when they didn’t meet up with him? Was it possible that in killing them, she’d just signed her own death warrant?  
  
Or had Anjali just released a beacon that let any inhuman creature nearby know exactly where to find her?  
  
  
“Who are you, and why are you here?” Her tone was demanding, void of any of the nervousness twisting around in her gut. Humans, she could handle, and had for many years.  
  
Never once had she encountered a faery.  
  
Much to her ire, however, the stranger remained silent. Observing.  
  
“I asked you a question,” She snarled this time in challenge, nerves bleeding into anger as she took a singular step forward, but no more.  
  
  
Now, she had his attention, either from the words or the sudden attempt at intimidation. But she quickly realized she didn’t want it as he seemed to decide it was his turn to move forward, and he didn’t stop.  
  
Both panicked and incensed, Anjali debated briefly on running as he closed in, but the idea was thrown out just as quickly. She’d fight her way out of this just as she fought her way out of any other obstacle thrown at her, and she wouldn’t falter or cower away.  
  
Summoning the untamed power she both hated and relied on, the woman lunged forward before he could reach her completely, prepared to make the first move of what was undoubtedly going to be a nasty fight.  
  
Except she never got the chance.  
  
Right as Anjali pounced, her unwanted guest did as well, moving with much more speed than she ever could have hoped to match. She wasn't even able to lash out with a wall of flame like she planned before he was in front of her, and in the next moment, there was a harsh blow to the side of her head.

Not for the first time that day, Anjali found her world fading to black as the ground rushed up to meet her face, fate once again left in the hands of a man she didn’t know.


	2. Chapter 2

Awareness came to her in waves.  
  
First, she felt the scratchiness of the fabric belonging to whatever she was laying on, pricking and rubbing harshly against her skin. Then, she tasted a mixture of metal and ash in her mouth, heavy and unpleasant on her tongue. And finally, the pounding of her head made itself known, pulsing in different levels of intensity that had her eyebrows furrowing together.  
  
For a long moment, Anjali only laid there, unwilling to open her eyes or get up from her spot. To say she felt like shit would be an understatement, and she wasn’t exactly ready to get moving and head over to whatever village her feet would take her to next. No, she was quite content to sleep in a few extra hours, at least until the headache went away.  
  
  
Embarrassingly enough, it took a few minutes before reality hit her.  
  
  
She hadn’t fallen asleep somewhere after a long night of exploring and sticking her nose into other people’s business. Hadn’t stumbled through some doorway, barely coherent enough to pay for a room, before falling onto the nearest available surface.  
  
No, if the sudden flashes of memory were right, then-  
  
  
Anjali was on her feet before she even realized what she was doing, fire crackling across her knuckles and up her arms as she tried to gain her bearings. She hadn’t passed out for a well deserved rest last night. Someone had attacked her, and then they’d brought her to…wherever the hell she currently was. If her mind hadn’t been in such a haze, it wouldn't have been that difficult to figure out where she’d been stolen away to, but all she wanted to do right then was let her body light up. She’d burn her way out of this place before he got back, and then-  
  
  
“I’d put that out and sit back down if I were you.”  
  
 _His_ voice effortlessly cut through the half panicked, half enraged thoughts that she’d been seconds away from acting upon, order carrying through the room without him having to speak louder than a person would normally. Still, she whirled around as if he’d yelled it out, nearly stumbling over herself as she did.  
  
  
The fae male from before was sitting on a cushioned chair, leaned back with his legs crossed as though he had nothing to worry about. With the light streaming through the window next to him, it was easier to see his true features than it had been in a pitch black forest. Vibrant red hair tied in a low ponytail, clothes too nice for a backwater little town, and a cold, assessing gaze that wasn’t missing a single thing.  
  
It became clearer by the second that this man wasn’t any normal creature from the other side of the old Wall. There was nothing else he could have been other than a High Fae, and it made her situation more dangerous than it already had been.  
  
  
“And what,” Anjali began after taking everything in, flames beginning to creep down her legs as her temper rose, “makes you think I’m going to listen to you?”  
  
Irritation flashed across his previously impassive face so quickly she would have missed it had she been looking elsewhere, and it only served to make her tense up further, half expecting he would _make_ her listen if she didn’t plan on doing so willingly. Instead, however, he took in a breath, putting on that perfect mask of his before gesturing around the room.  
  
“We’re in a human inn. If you plan on attacking me with that fire of yours, you’ll be putting every life in here at risk.”  
  
 _‘Liar.’_ She almost snapped, eyes narrowing into thin, displeased slits. And yet she took a second to properly look around, assessing her surroundings in the way she usually did, but hadn’t gotten to due to her initial alarm.  
  
Cheaply made furniture, explaining her discomfort earlier. Thin walls that, if she focused, revealed other patrons making their way through the halls and into their rooms. The smell of stew cooking was there as well, the usual undertones of deer and rabbit present. A loud burst of laughter echoed down the hallway, no doubt coming from where travelers took their meals.  
  
He hadn’t been lying, and Anjali grit her teeth as she forced her power to fade back into nothingness. The men who’d been planning on butchering her had deserved their deaths, but she wouldn’t set an entire building of innocent mortals on fire. There was no way her new attacker could have known that, though, and she suspected it was a gamble. One that he’d win either way, as he could no doubt escape on his own and leave the inn to burn, or she would cave and extinguish herself.  
  
Not even an hour had they known one another, and she was already starting to hate him.  
  
  
Unwilling to admit her defeat out loud, the demi-fae crossed her arms over her chest and clenched her jaw, bristling yet again when he made a gesture with his hand that quite obviously meant he wanted her to sit down like he’d already asked. But just because he won one battle didn’t mean she planned on letting him win both, so Anjali stayed on her feet, glaring down her nose as if he was the one beneath her, and not the other way around.  
  
This time, he didn’t push down the annoyance her insolence brought out, setting his own jaw and glaring right back with more intensity than she was expecting. Had Anjali been another person, she might have flinched or at the very least looked away in quiet submission. Ishanvi, however, had not raised her daughter to bow to spoiled men, or any man for that matter, and he certainly wouldn’t be the first.  
  
Evidently, that was the wrong move to make.  
  
The temperature in the room rose the longer the two of them had their standoff, sweltering enough that it would have chased out any human. Anjali had fire in her blood, though, and wouldn’t be deterred so easily, even when something _other_ came into play. There was no way to see or hear it, no scent other than smoke and heat, but she could feel an entity pressing close, forcing nearly all the air from her lungs. It was suffocating in it’s potency, bringing back the pain in her head the longer she was exposed to it, and only as it grew worse did she realize it was his magic he was forcing on her.  
  
Stubborn and prideful as she could be, Anjali would have labored through it all for hours if needed. Whoever this High Fae was, he wasn’t used to being on the losing team, and she would have gladly been the one to introduce him to the concept.  
  
Unfortunately, she didn’t actually want to be around him for hours. And it was that reason and that reason alone that she finally broke their staring contest, not looking down- _never down_ \- but to the side and out of the window. The magic in the room began to thin solely because of that, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing her inhale any deep breaths, briefly wondering how high in the air they might be. How many bones she might break if she decided to make a dramatic exit.  
  
  
“Are you going to keep staring at me like the lowlife I’m beginning to think you are, or are you going to explain why you kidnapped me?”  
  
Just as she’d broken their stare-down, she broke the uneasy silence between them as well, though not without biting out an insult towards said lowlife as she turned back to face him. She still wouldn’t sit, but they seemed to have reached a wordless compromise about that.  
  
“I didn’t kidnap you-”  
  
“Yes you did.” Anjali interrupted, scowling at both the lie and how he’d finally uncrossed his legs and sat up. Undoubtedly, he’d come to the conclusion she wasn’t as simple to handle as he’d first assumed.  
  
“I was planning on talking with you civilly,” the fae continued in a clipped tone, “until you decided to attack me without warning.”  
  
She wouldn’t have tried to attack him if he hadn’t appeared in the dark like some demon and refused to answer her questions, but she kept that to herself. Along with the acknowledgement that he wasn’t entirely wrong. She’d attacked him first, and he defended himself. If he hadn’t already been proven to be an ass, she might have appreciated that he hadn’t abandoned her in the woods out of spite.  
  
The way he kept staring so intently at her certainly wasn’t helping Anjali’s growing disdain for him. She hadn’t realized it at first, dizzy and uncoordinated as she was, but his gaze had _always_ been on her. Taking in her hair and face, almost squinting at her eyes. He was drinking in the sight of her, and she didn’t like it in the slightest.  
  
“I don’t know you, but with the way you keep watching me, I get the feeling you know me. What did you want to talk about… civilly that was so important you dragged me here?”  
  
It wasn’t lost on her that he’d more or less avoided her first question- and he avoided this one as well, choosing to ask his own rather than give her any kind of a decent response.  
  
“What’s your name, and why are you here alone?” He didn’t question why she had killed those men like she was anticipating. Either he didn’t care, or he had been observing them long enough to understand why, and she wasn’t sure which would be less uncomfortable.  
  
Anjali also wasn’t sure she wanted to answer him for a variety of reasons, the main one being that it didn’t seem wise to have this conversation with a person she knew nothing about, but she had little choice in the matter. She could ignore what he wanted to know like he was ignoring what _she_ wanted to know and risk pissing him off, therefore starting another battle of the wills- or she could play along and placate him long enough to figure a way out that didn’t result in her sending the building up in flames.  
  
“It’s Anjali, and I’ve been alone for a long time. Is it normal for fae to travel in packs like wild animals?”  
  
Her question was sarcastic, meant to get on his nerves and maybe get him to fall off-track, but he frowned in response. Not aggravated, but almost unsettled. Like she’d said something wrong, just not in the way she intended.  
  
“How many years, exactly?” He continued, earning a blank look. Anjali was less than impressed with the information he was trying to get out of her, and she couldn’t truthfully respond anyway. Time had passed differently for her, lasted longer and somehow went by quicker than it would for a mortal, and being locked away hadn’t helped. Then, once she was on her own, she’d spent a long while running free in the wilderness. After a while, there wasn’t any reason to keep track.  
  
“For a faery, you aren’t very good at trying to discreetly learn about others.” She offered instead, unamused and slowly losing her patience. In the back of her mind, she surmised he was probably better at this in his regular habitat, but there was something here that had put him on uneven footing. She just didn’t know what.  
  
“What about your parents- your mother? Did she abandon you?”  
  
  
There went the rest of her tolerance for this exchange.  
  
  
Anjali’s hold on her temper was lost, outrage sending a quick burst of fire to the palm of her left hand before it was snuffed out, fists forming in it’s wake. She should have stopped to ask how it was he knew that her mother was the human and not her father, but her focus was on the part where he’d implied Ishanvi would abandon her. Her mother was too good of a woman to have even considered it, and she’d given up the rest of her life raising Anjali and doing her best to ensure she became a good person. He didn’t get to assume the worst of her.  
  
“I don’t know how any of this is your business when you haven’t even told me your name. If you have to know, I’ve never met my bastard of a father, and my mother was a saint. She died decades ago, and I won’t have you talking about her with any less respect than she deserves.”  
  
She knew that if he said one wrong thing, one disrespectful comment, she was going to launch herself at him and spend the next hour rearranging his face.  
  
  
For once, he was completely silent, an emotion she couldn’t fully comprehend breaking through the impassive yet severe act he’d solely allowed anger to show through thus far. He wasn’t happy about hearing what she had to say. If she was as naive as she used to be, she might have said he looked guilty.  
  
  
Nevertheless, he didn’t wear the expression for long, closing himself off and opening his mouth to ask yet another question that he had no right to ask in the first place. Anjali beat him to it this time, though, stomping a foot hard enough for the noise to cut him off.  
  
“No, you’ve taken the lead and avoided my questions long enough. Answer me- who the hell are you, and why are you so invested in my life?” She demanded, standing up straight and putting both hands on her hips. Intimidation wasn’t going to work, she wasn’t haughty enough to think that it would, but she wanted him to know she was serious. He wasn’t going to get anything else out of her until he started forking over something in return.  
  
Razor-sharp as his eyes were, his displeasure at being spoken over was blatant. Anjali didn’t particularly care, but she did temporarily keep her mouth shut as he mulled over his words, visibly debating on what to say. How much to give away, and whether it was worth giving away anything at all.  
  
“Either you answer me, or I’m leaving. Get in the way if you want, but you’ll find out I’m not nearly as attached to the humans here as you think I am.” A bluff. One she hoped he couldn’t see through, but the only card she had left to play. Because truthfully, she had no way to force him to respond, no matter her threats.  
  
Seemingly as stubborn as she was, the man stayed silent, contemplating. Even when given an ultimatum, he was hesitant to spill what he’d been holding back since she’d first woken up. What he’d been harassing her for, the reason for all his gawking.  
  
Trying to push him further, Anjali summoned her flames again, letting them dance along her skin and grow in size. They were reflected in her exasperating companion’s golden gaze, and it was only when a footprint seared itself into the wooden floorboards that he let out an irritated sigh.  
  
“My name is Eris Vanserra, firstborn son of the High Lord of Autumn.”  
  
A tense pause.  
  
  
  
“And I’m your bastard of a father, as you put it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Well, I told y'all this wasn't meant to be a love story.


End file.
